Both “12 Years a Slave” and “Amistad have their fair share of the true history behind each film. In “Amistad” Spielberg somewhat abuses history to make the film more entertaining. A prime example is the scene where we see the salve on the slave ship going through the middle passage and we witness how they are being treated. While that the film tells a true story of a group of Mende people from Sierra Leone, who take over a Spanish slave ship named A La Amistad, it is mainly A film of white hero worship. Much of the movie is occupied with the all white Supreme Court and where white lawyers defend the poor basically mute Africans. Spielberg also failed to show the true colors of one of the main characters in this film that had a pivotal role.
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Both films show this is two very different way both of which do their best to stay as true to the history books a possible. “Amistad” is the least historically accurate between the two. Director Steven Spielberg failed to mention the actions of the supreme court justices that were portrayed in the movie as good guys after the actions of the movie. For example Federal Judge Andrew Judson who declares the captives were actually free men and not Cuban slaves. But Spielberg failed to have the addition of Andrew Judsons darker side where later Judson ruling will put a damper on attempts to educate black children in Connecticut for years. Or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney who at the time ruled to free the Amistad Africans in 1841, but it was failed to mention that 16 years later the same man would approve of the Dred Scott Act that states: ''The black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect.'' I feel as if these are very important historical facts to include in such a powerful story. Be that as it may “12 Years a Slave” nail the historical facts right on the head. Director Steve Mcqueen show the audience that domestic slave trade was a very profitable business in the United States territory even when slavery was abolished in the north. It had a huge boom in business between 1810 to the 1840s. So when Solomon Northup got drugged and kidnapped in 1841 and sold down through Washington, D.C., then later is sold to the huge slave market in New Orleans — it was just part of the huge business that all over the southern region of the United States of America at the
Both films show this is two very different way both of which do their best to stay as true to the history books a possible. “Amistad” is the least historically accurate between the two. Director Steven Spielberg failed to mention the actions of the supreme court justices that were portrayed in the movie as good guys after the actions of the movie. For example Federal Judge Andrew Judson who declares the captives were actually free men and not Cuban slaves. But Spielberg failed to have the addition of Andrew Judsons darker side where later Judson ruling will put a damper on attempts to educate black children in Connecticut for years. Or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney who at the time ruled to free the Amistad Africans in 1841, but it was failed to mention that 16 years later the same man would approve of the Dred Scott Act that states: ''The black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect.'' I feel as if these are very important historical facts to include in such a powerful story. Be that as it may “12 Years a Slave” nail the historical facts right on the head. Director Steve Mcqueen show the audience that domestic slave trade was a very profitable business in the United States territory even when slavery was abolished in the north. It had a huge boom in business between 1810 to the 1840s. So when Solomon Northup got drugged and kidnapped in 1841 and sold down through Washington, D.C., then later is sold to the huge slave market in New Orleans — it was just part of the huge business that all over the southern region of the United States of America at the